Secrets and Lies: A member of the Air National Guard in Massachusetts identified as Jack Teixeira has been arrested by the FBI in the leak of classified documents that were posted on the social media platform Discord.

  The 21-year-old Teixeira, an Airman First Class, was in the intelligence wing of the guard. He was arrested at his mother’s home in Dighton, Massachusetts.

   The Washington Post reports that Teixeira was a member of an online group called Thug Shaker Central. Before Teixeira  was publicly identified, the Post described him as “a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.”

  The leak has been a big embarrassment to the Pentagon and the Biden administration, revealing Ukraine war plans and spying on US allies. The documents reveal maps of Ukrainian air defenses and a review of South Korea’s secret plans to deliver ammunition to that country. Much of the intelligence is current, some of it less than 40 days old.

  The Post reports that Teixeira was one of roughly two-dozen men and boys in an invitation-only group “united by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God.” The paper says one member of the group says the Teixera goes online by the handle “OG,” which in the streets means “original gangster,” and said that he had brought documents home from his job on a “military base.”

  The Post says most of the members for weeks ignored OG’s posting of what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents because he was just trying to impress them. 

The Sunshine State: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis yesterday signed a new law banning abortion in that state after six weeks, making it one of the most restrictive in the country and ending Florida’s role as a refuge for southern women seeking the procedure.

  Florida had a dramatic increase in abortions following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and leave it up to the states whether to allow termination of pregnancies.

  Florida Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Fort Myers Republican, said before the 70-40 vote, “Today we lead. Today we stand for life. We stand with mothers, and we stand with Florida families. And by your vote today, we change the culture of abortion to a culture of life.”

It’s Political: California Sen. Diane Feinstein is under pressure to resign after being missing from the Senate for two months with what her office says is a case of shingles. At 89 she’s the oldest member of the Senate.

  Her absence in particular from the Judiciary Committee has stalled the appointment of new federal judges. It appears that she has no immediate plan to resign, but she asked to be temporarily removed from Judiciary so they can get things done. That might not happen. The Republicans have the power to block a replacement and jam up the appointment of new judges.

  Feinstein already announced that she’s not running for re-election in 2024. 

Murder Beat: San Francisco Police have arrested a suspect in the stabbing murder of Cash App founder Bob Lee. Nima Momeni, who has listed himself as  the owner of a company called Expand IT, was taken into custody at a live/work loft building in Emeryville in the Oakland area.

    Lee was fatally stabbed in the Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco early in the morning of April 4th. Police said the two men knew each other. 

Judgement: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his family back in 2014 sold several properties to billionaire conservative donor Harlan Crow for $133,000 and the justice never reported it, possibly in violation of the law, according to ProPublica. Federal law passed after Watergate requires justices and other government officials to disclose details of most real estate sales over $1,000.

  ProPublica previously reported that Thomas has accepted millions of dollars’ worth of luxury travel from Crow without reporting it.

  Crow bought the house in which Thomas’s mother lives and then spent tens of thousands of dollars on improvements. Crow issued a statement in response to the story saying he bought the house where Thomas spent part of his childhood with the intent of one day making it a museum “dedicated to telling the story of our nation’s second black Supreme Court Justice.” 

  Crow didn’t say why he bought directly from Thomas two lots down the street which were later re-sold to a builder.

The War Room: Russia’s elite and clandestine spetsnatz forces have been “gutted” by the war in Ukraine, The Washington Post reports according to those secret intelligence documents posted on the social media platform Discord. According to the assessments they’ve seen, it will take years to rebuild those forces.

  Russia has sent the spetsnatz directly into the meatgrinder to get mowed down with everyone else instead of using them for precision special operations.

The Spin Rack:  The Department of justice said it will go to the Supreme Court to keep the abortion drug mifepristone available, following the ruling by a federal judge in Texas that it must be taken off the market. — Continuing its saber rattling, North Korea has tested a solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. — Britain’s Prince Harry  will attend his father’s coronation while his wife, Meghan Markle, stays home. — The fire at an Indiana plastics recycling yard has finally been extinguished after days of spewing black toxic smoke. —  Minneapolis has agreed to pay $8.9 million to two people who said former  police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on their necks in the same manner in which he killed George Floyd in 2020. 

Below the Fold: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted a defense of the accused Air Force leaker, complaining that Jack Teixeira is being treated by the Biden administration “like a traitor and criminal.” She wrote, “Jake Teixeira is white, male, Christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.” 

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